Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Corrected
The original version of this story contained a quote from an article written by Washington Post foreign affairs writer Terrence McCoy, in which he reported that the Discovery Channel listed the James ossuary as a scientific hoax. McCoy’s story has been updated to remove that reference, as was brought to our attention by associates of Simcha Jacobovici, and our story has been updated to reflect that change. We regret any confusion this may have caused.
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In a new book due out this week, an embattled theologian claims longstanding rumors that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene are true, that he fathered two children with her, and that the proof of these claims was uncovered in a nearly 1,500-years-old Aramaic-language document unearthed at the British Library.
The claims are at the heart of ‘The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text that Reveals Jesus’ Marriage to Mary the Magdalene,’ written by York University (Canada) religious studies professor Barrie Wilson and Israeli-Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and scheduled for release Wednesday, various media outlets have reported.
The claims of a secret bloodline resulting from marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene was a plot point in the 2003 Dan Brown novel ‘The DaVinci Code
According to Terrence McCoy of The Washington Post, the book said that the document, known as the Ecclesiastical History of Zacharias Rhetor, provides “written evidence that Jesus was married to Mary the Magdalene.” It also claims that it “takes us into the missing years of Jesus’s life” and demonstrates that he “became engaged, got married, had sexual relations, and produced children.”
The manuscript “had been in the archives of the British Library for about 20 years, where it was put after the British Museum had originally bought it in 1847 from a dealer who said he had obtained it from the ancient St Macarius Monastery in Egypt,” Mount said. A handful of scholars have analyzed it over the past 160 years, but it had been considered “pretty unremarkable,” he added – that is, until Wilson and Jacobovici came along.
The duo studied the document for six years, and have come away convinced that it belongs beside the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Daily Mail writer reported. In fact, Jacobovici, who will present his findings at a conference hosted by the British Library later this week, claims the 29 chapter long manuscript is actually a sixth-century copy of a fifth gospel, written alongside the others in the first century but vastly different, content-wise.
On Wednesday, the authors have promised to release additional details from their forthcoming book, including the names of the alleged offspring, said Ben Tufft of The Independent. Furthermore, Tufft said that Wilson and Jacobovici claim in their book that the text of the British Library document states the original Virgin Mary was actually the wife of Jesus, not his mother as is typically depicted.
However, McCoy pointed out that the names Jesus and Mary Magdalene do not actually appear in the document; rather, Wilson and Jacobovic said that two other characters – the “savior-figure” Joseph and his wife Aseneth – are meant to represent the duo and that the meaning of the text had been hidden in code and “embedded meaning.”
As the authors write, Joseph, like Jesus, was believed to have been dead only to be found alive at a later date, and also rose from humble beginnings to become a type of king. Thus, they contend that Joseph actually represents Jesus, and his wife would have represented the actual, secret wife of Jesus, The Washington Post writer noted.
“The book’s purported findings, however, only tell part of the story,” McCoy said. “Jacobovici… has already come under criticism for pursuing theories of early Christianity that many scholars have dismissed. The controversy is a subplot to the grander drama surrounding the study of Jesus’s life, illustrating the tug-and-pull between popular interest, entrenched doctrine, the potential for big payouts and the limits of academic inquiry.”
“In 2002, Jacobovici, a Canadian filmmaker who studies biblical archaeology, pushed out a documentary that hailed a seemingly pivotal relic called the James ossuary, which allegedly showed that Jesus had a family,” he added. “Its owner was indicted on charges of forgery. Archaeologists from Israel to the United States denounced the ossuary as a hoax.”
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Controversial Book Claims To Have Evidence Jesus Was Married, Had Kids
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